School of Social and Political Science

Description

In this talk, drawing on my book Police, Provocation, Politics: Counterinsurgency in Istanbul, I will present a counterintuitive analysis of contemporary policing practices, focusing particular attention on the incitement of counterviolence, perpetual conflict, and racial discord by the state security apparatus. Focusing on a case study from Turkey, but also engaging with various examples from the Global South and North, I approach policing not solely as a project of pacification but also as provocative and permanent war on politics. Guided by colonial logic, policing as a war on politics is not just about maintaining order but also about creating disorder. I will show how this war selectively targets already existing abolitionist practices that are experimented by racialised and oppressed populations. Informed by what I call “cultural archives of oppression and resistance” these abolitionist world-building practices are perfect examples of politics (a la Rancière) that should be taken seriously by anthropologists who are committed to learn from the tradition of the oppressed.